Tuesday, 27 October 2015

It is often claimed that agile development is faster than the alternative approaches. However, "faster" used this way might be misunderstood. For example, we all now that running can be tiring, so running faster can be exhausting.

Does agile development mean that we will exhaust the poor developers? And do so sprint after sprint? Does it mean we induce stress ulcer? Or will the developers have to cut down on testing, design, and quality to meet this faster pace of deliver?

Quite the opposite. Agile is faster in another way. It is not faster as in a long-distance runner being faster, rather in the way an orienteering runner might be faster - by making smart choices of route.

In agile we realise that developing systems is not running down a pre-routed track. It is more alike to make our way through wild terrain. When doing this it is crucial to early see if we are moving down a dead-end route, and then stop ourselves. To run down a dead-end route without getting anywhere is the most wasteful exhausting thing an orienteering runner can do.

In agile we try to adress this at as many levels as possible. To prevent the individual developer go down a dead-end without realising it, we have pair-programming or daily stand-ups as reality checks. At a team-level we have short sprints, or watch the kanban cycle-time, to prevent us from working on stuff in a bad direction for too long. At project- or initiative level we do impacts map and similar to ensure we do stories that matter. At the level of finance/funding and portfolio management we track effects to stop us from continue spending huge effort on stuff that give no or low effect.

So, agile does not make us faster by making us run at a more exhausting pace. Agile makes us faster by giving us tools to take smart routes, preventing us from detours.